Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Members can see, we have a lot of people in the gallery today. We have about 60 students from William MacDonald.

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I cannot name all of them, but I know they are all very special. They are a Grade 7 social studies class, Mrs. Gale Martin’s class, and someone well known in this House, Mr. Radcliffe’s Grade 7 class. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize Pat, my foster doll Pat from Tuk, who is sitting there with Cathy Olson. Also in the gallery, although I can’t see her, is Lynda Sorensen, who is well known in the Assembly, a former...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think the Minister understood my question. My question is, we know that many school boards in the Inuvik area, Delta, Yellowknife for sure -- I don't know in other areas -- have been delivering full-time kindergarten programs, even though they have not been funded, even though it's actually illegal, really, technically speaking, because there was no legislation to say that. Now we're saying you can have a kindergarten program if you want to. But this only says minimum half time, or maximum full-time kindergarten. We're not saying, "Have full-time...

I do want to get the Minister’s responses to my two points. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs conducted public hearings on Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Education Act, in the communities of Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, and Hay River, during the week of June 22 to 28, 2005, and in Yellowknife on June 20, 2005, and October 11, 2005.

Bill 4 will have the effect of changing the number of hours allowed for kindergarten instruction from a maximum amount based on a half-day program, to a minimum amount, again based on a half-day program. This will have the intended effect of allowing full-day kindergarten programs to continue in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't appreciate the Minister burning up question period time without answering my questions. Mr. Speaker, my question is very specific. There are builders all over the North -- in Hay River, in Yellowknife, and other places -- and let me just talk about the one in Yellowknife who is willing to use people who are in our correctional centre. He is willing to train people. He has built houses. I want to know, very specifically, how and when is the last time he talked to the builder in Kam Lake about how he could get involved in this project. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to my Member's statement today, I would like to pose my questions to the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I made a statement about the fact that there are a lot of small businesses and northern businesses who go through the ups and downs of running a business in the North, where everything is high. But they stick around, they pay their taxes, they employ our people, they train our people, in the hopes of taking advantage of an economic boom. One of the things that's going to happen when the pipeline comes...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in this House, we take pride in having a consensus style of government where the Members on both sides are supposed to work together to achieve things for the benefit of all our people. When it works, Mr. Speaker, it is really the best form of government, in terms of giving the strongest voice to the smallest constituency of the Territories. But when it doesn’t work, Mr. Speaker, it functions like nothing but a majority dictatorship, where the government knows it has the numbers, and they plough through with their agenda without listening to any input...

Why is it that when we know that schools have been funding full-time kindergarten when they were not budgeted for it, and obviously taking money from somewhere else because they have decided to do so, now we are saying that we want to catch up to that, because we support full-time kindergarten? Why is it that we're not saying you could have full-time kindergarten at a maximum, or half-time kindergarten at a minimum, and then fund accordingly? Why are we just going half way?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Obviously, I support the amendment, and I do thank the Minister for making this an action item. We’re not being exactly proactive in this area; we’re sort of catching up to what school boards have been doing, because we know that there are many school boards in the North who have already been providing full-time kindergarten, and now we’re just saying that it’s okay for you to have at least minimum and maximum half-day programs. We’re not even really fully legitimizing full-day kindergarten programs.

I support this amendment, but this got me thinking about how it was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have a whole lot of details to this case specifically, but it seems to be obvious to me that it is quite complex, and there are many sides to this story, with the emphasis being put on financial records and such. I listened, with a great deal of interest, to what the Premier said in his answer to my second question, and that was that he would look at all the day care programs and see how they are running. The fact of the matter is, even per diems are not given when a child doesn't show up; for example, even if you have to light the place and water the place...